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“What is that?”
Puzzled, Diana looked from the peculiar prickly succulent being held a mere two inches from her face to Akko, who was vibrating with excitement, holding this odd-looking plant like it was the most expensive of jewels.
“It’s a gift!” Akko told her, beaming. “Do you like it? I’ve named him Carl.”
“Carl…”
“Because he’s a cactus? Carl the cactus. Naming things isn’t my forte, Diana! What do you suggest we call him?” she huffed, unimpressed by Diana’s cavalier attitude, removing Carl from her line of sight.
Diana had a lot of questions. She just didn’t know where to begin, so she grabbed Akko’s elbow and guided her over to the settee in her room, motioning for her to sit down to stop her bouncing around the room. When Akko had bounded in just two minutes prior exclaiming she had a surprise, it certainly seemed to fit the descriptor.
“Firstly, why are we naming this plant anything? Secondly, why are you offering me a cactus? Thirdly-”
“It’s. A. Gift. From my parents. For the anniversary.”
“The…anniversary.”
Akko looked at her like she was growing two heads.
That wasn’t fair: Diana knew when their anniversary was. All of them. The first date, the first time they’d revealed their feelings, their first kiss, their, um, first time. Akko insisted they celebrate all of them, which they did, in style, so it was to Diana’s utter bemusement as to why Akko’s parents were sending them anything, much less a cactus for an unknown occasion. Did Japan have a lot of cacti? No, of course it didn’t. It was such an impractical gift to send, too. Did it come through the post? Was she missing something?
Still, Akko looked at her with equal bemusement. “It’s for the first time they met you,” she explained, holding out the cactus again as though that would explain everything. “When you visited last summer, before we started going out.”
“Oh.” Diana simply could not wrap her head around the chain of events that brought them to this moment. “Is it right to call that an anniversary?”
Aghast, Akko exclaimed, “Of course! That’s the first day they ever laid eyes on you! Well, in person. I showed them plenty of pictures of you before that, which in hindsight should have keyed me in to the massive crush I had on you...No matter! It’s when we all had dinner together and you were jetlagged and you fell asleep afterwards on my shoulder while we watched TV.”
Sighting wistfully, Akko thought back on that night and tuned out of the conversation.
Akko – and her parents – were odd, Diana decided, choosing not to voice her comment aloud. No matter what her girlfriend said, celebrating so many anniversaries was not standard practice, and nor was other people sending them gifts for made-up occasions.
Whatever the case, Diana was nothing if not polite, so she smiled and said, “I’ll send them a thank you card.”
Evidently it was the right thing to say because Akko lit up, pushing Carl over to her again. There was little else for Diana to do apart from accept it, holding the bottom of the pot gingerly. Well. It was definitely a cactus. From what she knew about them, it would be a low maintenance job of keeping it alive. If it meant her girlfriend would be happy, Diana mused, knowing how ridiculously in love she sounded, she would accept this dilapidated plant, accept its silly name, and accept the fact the apple didn’t fall far from the tree where her girlfriend’s proclivities for celebration were concerned.
“They said that it would be good practice,” Akko said, watching her and the cactus proudly. “For when we’re older and having children and everything.”
Carl the Cactus nearly ended up on the floor as Diana fumbled her grip, Akko gasping dramatically as she dove across the settee and tried to hold it upright. Both of them received jabs in the process of saving it from tipping over, but Diana paid her injury no mind, too distracted by the unexpected words falling from her girlfriend’s lips.
“What did you just say?”
“Take better care of Carl!” Akko yelped, taking back the potted plant and cooing, “it’s okay, you’re alright, Diana didn’t mean to scare you-”
“Akko,” Diana interrupted, thoroughly incensed. “Do you care to explain?”
Akko looked at her blankly. “What do you mean?”
“Kids,” Diana prompted, knowing her face was turning red. “Your parents were talking about us having kids?”
“Oh, right, yeah. They don’t expect them tomorrow or anything, but they know I’m, like, madly in love with you and want to spend forever celebrating all our anniversaries together. I think they were also joking? My dad was laughing when I called him about Carl. He said, and I quote, “don’t let this cactus die on your watch Atsuko or else I fear for yours and Diana’s future children” and then he laughed some more and my mum smacked him over the head for “putting ideas into our heads” and then I said, “well it’s not going to happen by accident” though I may have taken it too far – and forgotten who I was talking to actually – when I said “not for lack of trying however” and then, um, my dad started to cry-laugh and my mum made us all hang up the phone.” Akko exhaled and flopped backwards, tired from her rapid-fire retelling.
Diana, who was trying her utmost not to burst a blood vessel, simply stared while she processed the information. “I have no idea what to say to that,” she realised, her mind blank. “You… are something else.”
“Thanks. I think. Either way, we need to take care of Carl. Do you want to keep him in your room?”
“I’d prefer it if you kept him in yours,” she replied, internally sighing at the fact she was calling the cactus him. Besides, that plant would forever remind her of this conversation, which she already wanted to forget.
“Hey! We’ll have to celebrate the anniversary of today, too-”
“We will not,” Diana hissed, standing up and folding her arms.
Genuinely shocked, Akko started to open her mouth to spew a defence of why they should celebrate the anniversary of the time her parents’ gift reached Luna Nova before she caught wind of Diana’s mood and wisely decided to close her mouth right back up.
“Have I… done something wrong?” she asked anxiously. “If you don’t like the name Carl we can change it! Or is it the fact my parents sent us a gift? I suppose a cactus is a little weird, but they’ve been giving me strange things as birthday presents ever since I was born. This is actually one of their less weird gifts. It’s my dad, you know, he thinks he’s such a comedian. My mum indulges him. Wait, is it because of the kids comment? Oh, God,” Akko said, suddenly horrified. “Did I assume – Diana, please don’t leave me, I take it all back! Pretend we never had this conversation, okay, I never even thought-”
“Akko,” Diana sighed, losing all her ire in one fell swoop. Seeing Akko panic at the thought of her leaving sobered her right up. “I’m not leaving you. I don’t ever want to leave you. We might be young, but I’m sure of my heart. It was just a shock, first to realise your parents sent us a gift for something I would consider arbitrary –though the sentiment is of course lovely – and then to hear you throw the word kids around like that… It’s not something we’ve ever talked about. I realise now it was said in jest, but Akko, honestly, you’re not the best at regaling information, and the way you phrased that made it sound much more serious than it was.”
“Oh.” Akko’s voice was quiet as she mulled the last several minutes over. “So you… do want to have kids with me?” she asked hopefully.
Diana sighed – and blushed. “I’m saying that’s a conversation for a later date. Perhaps we should focus on keeping Carl alive first.” She looked at the cactus distastefully, as though it were responsible for her girlfriend’s wiles.
“Good idea,” Akko said, back to being enthusiastic. “Sorry about the misunderstanding. For the record, I was excited – my parents only send weird gifts to people they like. And, um, I do want to be with you forever, too. Also I’m sorry about telling my parents we, you know…”
“Let’s forget about that,” Diana said quickly, choosing to focus on the fact her sheepish girlfriend was incredibly cute sitting on the settee, twiddling her fingers while she looked up with wide, innocent eyes. Not so innocent, really, but Diana needed to keep her sanity and get through this conversation – and her life – without reconciling all of Akko’s personality traits.
“Let’s keep Carl in my room, then!” Akko beamed, standing up and grabbing the cactus, peering at it closely. “I hope he can survive Sucy.”
Diana couldn’t believe she was feeling protective over a Cactus of all things but- “Actually, let’s keep him here. Put him on the windowsill.”
“Roger that!”
Akko lined him up in the centre and stood back to admire her handiwork.
“Your parents are sweet,” she said, watching Akko watch the plant and feeling a surge of affection. She was ridiculous, yes, but she had the biggest heart out of anyone she’d even known, and her parents were a testament to that. Long ago she’d accepted that life with Akko would always be a little unusual, and a lot surprising. This was simply one of those times.
Instead of dwelling on all that was to come, she took a deep breath and contented herself with the here and now: her girlfriend’s parents had sent a sentimental gift, she was being welcomed into the family, and if they were joking about them one day starting a family together, it was clearly said from a place of love and acceptance.
When Akko grabbed her hand and declared them the guardians of Carl the Cactus, beaming at the thought of co-parenting a plant, Diana couldn’t stop the smile if she tried. They’d celebrate this moment next year, too, immortalising the moment Carl came into their lives. If it made Akko happy, then, well, Diana was putting on a party hat for a cactus.
One day, a few years into the future, Diana would remember this day as she watched Akko try to fondly pat the top of their still-very-much-alive cactus, chastising it when one of its spikes drew blood, and think to herself, quite out of the blue, I’m ready for that conversation now.